Clone Wars 1.10: Lair of Grievous

Subtitle: Another episode, another soon to be dead Jedi.

This is Kit Fisto. He’s a Jedi Master. He dies in Revenge of the Sith.

This is Nahdar, Kit Fisto’s former padawan who has just recently passed the Trials and become a Jedi Knight. He’s overeager and has something to prove. He dies in this episode. He is a thinly veiled stand-in for Anakin and Ahsoka and I don’t like it at all.

The kid is introduced, chastised, and killed off in this one 22 minute episode. I have no time to start to care about him.

In fact, I figured out halfway through he was going to die so what was even the point of trying to care about him? There is more than enough tragedy surrounding the Star Wars characters I already do care about.

I figured out halfway through he was going to die because the Star Wars characters I already do care about don’t appear in the episode – but Kit and Nahdar have the exact same conversations that Anakin and Obi-Wan, Anakin and Yoda, Anakin and Mace, Ahsoka and Anakin-Acting-Like-Obi-Wan, Ahsoka and Luminara, and even Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, and Qui-Gon and Yoda, and Qui-Gon and Mace, have had, are having, and will have, so if Nahdar was not going to die then he would be Ahsoka and/or Anakin having that conversation with Kit (or any other older generation Jedi).

So the series wants to show me, the person who’s started calling the Jedi “Judgmental Elitist Dogmatic Idealogues”, that the Anakins and Ahsokas of the world are dangerous. That being overeager and ambitious has dire consequences (i.e. it will kill you) and The Jedi Way (™) is paramount and they should always listen to their wise elders. But they can’t kill off Anakin or Ahsoka, so they make up another kid.

Nahdar’s entire purpose is to die. Not to be a cool new character, not to be a Calamarian Jedi, not to give more depth to his species, or the tragedy of Order 66, or even to his former Master Kit Fisto (which is like, a main point of the series?). No Nahdar was created to die to prove the point that acting like Anakin will get you killed.

But it doesn’t prove the point that acting like Anakin will get you killed. It proves the point that acting like Anakin while not being Anakin will get you killed.

And because neither Anakin nor Ahsoka are here for it, neither Anakin nor Ahsoka learns that lesson. And I’m so mad about the whole thing I don’t learn that lesson either. I just chalk it up as another reason the Jedi are terrible and I’m Team Anakin.

Finally, how is Nahdar remembered? As a teaching moment:

Me:

Anyway, the plot of the episode: Dooku is tired of Grievous being bested by the Jedi so he sets up a trap for both Grievous and Kit + Nahdar. This series is turning Dooku into the character I was promised (I love the scene between Dooku and Obi-Wan in Attack of the Clones where the count literally tells Obi-Wan everything that is going on, but nothing else that happens in the films lives up to that amazingness) and I really appreciate that. I am very curious about Dooku’s motivations and Dooku in general.

The episode also tries to flesh out Grievous beyond the cartoon villain he is so far but I’m not sold on that yet. I do love this line: